The thing is, Reagan really was against tariffs.

[Correll]

He was right about the inevitable consequence of tariffs (or the people who wrote that script were), which is playing out in real time. Full stop.

He was WRONG about what Free Trade or globalization would bring.


That policy has failed. Why are you and your side insisting on keeping a clearly failed policy?

 

[berg80]

Inflation rate hit 3.0% in September​

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/24/cpi-inflation-september-2025.html

Remember when Dear Leader said he would wave his wand and make inflation go away?

 

[berg80]

He was WRONG about what Free Trade or globalization would bring.

Watch it now. That's St. Ronnie you are bashing as if it somehow is a defense of Dotard's idiocy.

 

[Nostra]

Let's look at the record for berg80 new hero, Ronoldus Magnus:

(before any of you nitwits show up with your usual 'NUH-UH", be prepared to bring documentation showing anything in this is not accurate)

history confirms the soundness of the Reagan, and now Bush, approach to economic policy. Under President Reagan, federal revenues increased even with tax cuts, federal spending did not decrease, the country experienced the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime in its history, and the rich paid more taxes proportionately than they had before the tax cuts were implemented.

Many critics of reducing taxes claim that the Reagan tax cuts drained the U.S. Treasury. The reality is that federal revenues increased significantly between 1980 and 1990:

• Total federal revenues doubled from just over $517 billion in 1980 to more than $1 trillion in 1990. In constant inflation-adjusted dollars, this was a 28 percent increase in revenue.3
• As a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), federal revenues declined only slightly from 18.9 percent in 1980 to 18 percent in 1990.4
• Revenues from individual income taxes climbed from just over $244 billion in 1980 to nearly $467 billion in 1990.5 In inflation-adjusted dollars, this amounts to a 25 percent increase.

Although critics continue to focus on President Reagan's budget "cuts," federal spending rose significantly during the 1980s:

• Federal spending more than doubled, growing from almost $591 billion in 1980 to $1.25 trillion in 1990. In constant inflation-adjusted dollars, this was an increase of 35.8 percent.6
• As a percentage of GDP, federal expenditures grew slightly from 21.6 percent in 1980 to 21.8 percent in 1990.7
• Contrary to popular myth, while inflation-adjusted defense spending increased by 50 percent between 1980 and 1989, it was curtailed when the Cold War ended and fell by 15 percent between 1989 and 1993. However, means-tested entitlements, which do not include Social Security or Medicare, rose by over 102 percent between 1980 and 1993, and they have continued climbing ever since.8
• Total spending on all national security programs never equaled domestic spending, even when Social Security, Medicare, and net interest are excluded from domestic totals. In addition, national security spending fell during the Administration of the senior President Bush, while domestic spending increased in both mandatory and discretionary accounts.9 (See Chart 1.)

​

Despite the steep recession in 1982--brought on by tight money policies that were instituted to squeeze out the historic inflation level of the late 1970s--by 1983, the Reagan policies of reducing taxes, spending, regulation, and inflation were in place. The result was unprecedented economic growth:

• This economic boom lasted 92 months without a recession, from November 1982 to July 1990, the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime and the second-longest period of sustained growth in U.S. history. The growth in the economy lasted more than twice as long as the average period of expansions since World War II.10
• The American economy grew by about one-third in real inflation-adjusted terms. This was the equivalent of adding the entire economy of East and West Germany or two-thirds of Japan's economy to the U.S. economy.11
• From 1950 to 1973, real economic growth in the U.S. economy averaged 3.6 percent per year. From 1973 to 1982, it averaged only 1.6 percent. The Reagan economic boom restored the more usual growth rate as the economy averaged 3.5 percent in real growth from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1990.12

Perhaps the greatest myth concerning the 1980s is that Ronald Reagan slashed taxes so dramatically for the rich that they no longer have paid their fair share. The flaw in this myth is that it mixes tax rates with taxes actually paid and ignores the real trend of taxation:

• In 1991, after the Reagan rate cuts were well in place, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in income paid 25 percent of all income taxes; the top 5 percent paid 43 percent; and the bottom 50 percent paid only 5 percent.13 To suggest that this distribution is unfair because it is too easy on upper-income groups is nothing less than absurd.
• The proportion of total income taxes paid by the top 1 percent rose sharply under President Reagan, from 18 percent in 1981 to 28 percent in 1988.14
• Average effective income tax rates were cut even more for lower-income groups than for higher-income groups. While the average effective tax rate for the top 1 percent fell by 30 percent between 1980 and 1992, and by 35 percent for the top 20 percent of income earners, it fell by 44 percent for the second-highest quintile, 46 percent for the middle quintile, 64 percent for the second-lowest quintile, and 263 percent for the bottom quintile.15
• These reductions for the lowest-income groups were so large because President Reagan doubled the personal exemption, increased the standard deduction, and tripled the earned income tax credit (EITC), which provides net cash for single-parent families with children at the lowest income levels. These changes eliminated income tax liability altogether for over 4 million lower-income families.16

Critics often add in the Social Security payroll tax and argue that the total federal tax burden shifted more to lower-income groups and away from upper-income groups; but President Reagan's changes were in the income tax, not in the Social Security payroll tax. The payroll tax was imposed by proponents of big government over the past 50 years, and it is they, not Ronald Reagan, who should be held accountable for its distributional effects.


Nevertheless, even if one counts the Social Security payroll tax, the share of total federal taxes increased between 1980 and 1989 for the following groups:

• For the top 1 percent of taxpayers, from 12.9 percent in 1980 to 15.4 percent in 1989;
• For the top 5 percent of taxpayers, from 27.3 percent in 1980 to 30.4 percent in 1989; and
• For the top 20 percent of taxpayers, from 56.1 percent in 1980 to 58.6 percent in 1989.

On the other hand, the share of total federal taxes, if one includes the Social Security payroll tax, declined for four groups:

• For the second-highest 20 percent of taxpayers, from 22.2 percent in 1980 to 20.8 percent in 1989;
• For the middle 20 percent of taxpayers, from 13.2 percent in 1980 to 12.5 percent in 1989;
• For the second-lowest 20 percent of taxpayers, from 6.9 percent in 1980 to 6.4 percent in 1989; and
• For the lowest 20 percent of taxpayers, from 1.6 percent in 1980 to 1.5 percent in 1989.17

No matter how advocates of big government try to rewrite history, Ronald Reagan's record of fiscal responsibility continues to stand as the most successful economic policy of the 20th century. His tax reforms triggered an economic expansion that continues to this day. His investments in national security ended the Cold War and made possible the subsequent defense spending reductions that are largely responsible for the current federal surpluses. His efforts to restrain the expansion of federal government helped to limit the growth of domestic spending.


If Reagan's critics had been willing to work with him to limit domestic spending even further and to control the growth of entitlements, the budget would have been balanced five to ten years sooner and without the massive tax increase imposed in 1993. Today, Members of Congress from across the political spectrum should stand on the evidence and defend the Reagan record.


To the extent that President Bush's proposals mirror those of Ronald Reagan, his plan should be a welcome strategy to lower the tax burden on Americans and to make the system more responsible. If the advocates of big government in Congress cooperate with President Bush rather than merely continuing to fund obsolete, wasteful, and redundant programs, there is no limit to the prosperity that Americans can generate.


Peter Sperry is the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

The Real Reagan Economic Record: Responsible and Successful Fiscal Policy

See also: The Truth About Tax Rates and The Politics of Class Warfare by Daniel J. Mitchell, Ph.D.

www.heritage.org

 

[MagicMike]

Reagan had a Cold War world, totally different scenario. Such comparisons are juvenile at best, idiotic at worst.

We are still in a cold war and even if we weren't what would be "different" about the situation now?

 

[22lcidw]

Reagan was bamboozled by neocons. That's why Trump has been economically better than Reagan.

His Vice President was a Neo Con Globalist and got us into a war not soon after he became President. There is a difference from 1980 and 2024. Our dominance was eroding in American owned manufacturing in 1980. Foreign owned manufacturing is much more prevalent in 2024. Thus, we are weaker.

 

[shockedcanadian]

That is trump's narrative, not reality.

After WWII America stimulated the world and did so to avoid communism from taking hold.

That has remained in place for 80 years while other countries were allowed to tariff America to their hearts content.

The world has changed. America is protecting all of the West and taken on $38T in debt on behalf of everyone in the process.

Times have changed. I've accepted this as a Canadian though I am smart enough to know how I would deal with it but we have arrogant fools here, especially in Ontario.

 

[Muhammed]

That video was used out of context. It cut off before the part in that speech where Reagan announced he was slapping Japan with 100% tariff on electronics. Reagan was not afraid to use tariffs. He cited Japan's unfair trade practices.

So, it was purposefully misleading. But worse, it was proof of Canada meddling in our internal affairs.

**** Canada. **** them hard.

 

[pknopp]

That video was used out of context. It cut off before the part in that speech where Reagan announced he was slapping Japan with 100% tariff on electronics.

So, it was purposefully misleading. But worse, it was proof of Canada meddling in our internal affairs.

**** Canada. **** them hard.

Condemning what we have long participated in doing (and still do). If it's wrong, it's wrong, even for the U.S.

 

[berg80]

That has remained in place for 80 years while other countries were allowed to tariff America to their hearts content.

That is trump's narrative, not reality.

 

[berg80]

That video was used out of context. It cut off before the part in that speech where Reagan announced he was slapping Japan with 100% tariff on electronics.

Nope. Reagan was explaining why he felt the Japan tariffs were necessary but that the kind of tariff policy Dotard has put in place is destructive over time.

 

[22lcidw]

Condemning what we have long participated in doing (and still do). If it's wrong, it's wrong, even for the U.S.

Let the Chinese take Canada over. We can build a northern wall and take care of ourselves then.

 

[Lesh]

He was WRONG about what Free Trade or globalization would bring.


That policy has failed. Why are you and your side insisting on keeping a clearly failed policy?

So now decades of right wing mantra about free trade is in the dumpster because

Trump?

 

[pknopp]

So now decades of right wing mantra about free trade is in the dumpster because

Trump?

They have replaced Capitalism with Trumpalism.

The GOP's 'capitalism' is central planning with MAGA branding

Socialism is government control of the means of production. When the government becomes your largest shareholder, that's a strong first step.

reason.com

 

[berg80]

So now decades of right wing mantra about free trade is in the dumpster because

Trump?

Remember, in the eyes of The Following trump is infallible.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I don't disagree Ron was essentially an empty vessel who could deliver a line, used by the conservatives of the day to do their bidding. But the script he was reading about tariffs was spot on.........and that is why Baby Donald is shaking his rattle.

yet that empty vessel is usually in the top ten in modern president ratings....

 

[Muhammed]

Nope. Reagan was explaining why he felt the Japan tariffs were necessary but that the kind of tariff policy Dotard has put in place is destructive over time.

Japan was engaging in unfair trade practices back in the 1980s when Reagan was in office. Just like China has been doing in this century. Except now it on a much larger scale. A different order of magnitude. We need to decouple our economy from China because being dependent on an adversary is a major national security vulnerability.

 

[Moonglow]

Yeah, so was I. Shit happens.

Ah, so yer a sod buster?

 

[pknopp]

Japan was engaging in unfair trade practices back in the 1980s when Reagan was in office. Just like China has been doing in this century. Except now it on a much larger scale. A different order of magnitude. We need to decouple our economy from China because being dependent on an adversary is a major national security vulnerability.

Business isn't going to go for that.

 

[Moonglow]

Japan was engaging in unfair trade practices back in the 1980s when Reagan was in office. Just like China has been doing in this century. Except now it on a much larger scale. A different order of magnitude. We need to decouple our economy from China because being dependent on an adversary is a major national security vulnerability.

Then the US had better find a supplier of precious, rare minerals we need and do not have.